Seasons in the Sun (6 page)

I couldn’t look into his eyes. They were too sad. “Taryn.”

I stole a quick glance at him to see his reaction. He slammed his hand against the side of the Jeep. “Damn it.”

“Tristan, they just wanted to help you. They love you. They didn’t know what to do.”

He raked his fingers roughly through his hair and looked towards the sky. Was he trying not to cry? “I don’t need anyone’s help.”

It was everything I could do not to reach out to him, to hold him, to console him, but I was still angry and hurt by his behavior. “Come on, let’s go into the concert.” I held out my hand to him as a peace offering. If nothing else, I wanted to try to turn this awful day around.

He stared at my hand, as if it was some sort of foreign object he hadn’t seen before. I was getting ready to take it back and walk away from him when he finally took it.

We walked to the gate in silence.

Chapter Twelve

Tristan behaved for most of the concert. He seemed to sober up some. Even he couldn’t figure out a way to buy alcohol inside the show. It didn’t seem to bother him, and we finally were able to have a good time. We didn’t bring up our argument from the parking lot, but things were definitely different because of it.

There were two stages with bands playing at the same time all day long. Someone had handed us a schedule on the way into the show, which Tristan had missed but I grabbed one. It proved to come in handy as we ran back and forth depending on which band Tristan preferred at the time. I didn’t know who any of them were, so I was just happy that getting lost in the music seemed to be enough for him at the moment.

But I couldn’t totally relax. I kept waiting for the next bomb to explode.

“Wait for me here. I need the ladies room,” I said to Tristan as we made our way from stage to stage. The sky was fading to twilight and the blazing sun started to cool.

“Sure,” he kissed me quickly as he let go of my hand.

The line wasn’t moving. Half of the stalls were no longer operable, overflowing with toilet paper and god only knows what else. The floors were wet and the smell was unbearable. It was the last place I wanted to be, but I had no other option but to wait.

The sky had changed a bit more by the time I came back out. I knew I remembered the spot I left Tristan in, but he wasn’t there. Was I in there so long he took off on me?

I spun around slowly. He couldn’t have gone too far without me. I could hear the bands had started on both stages, almost competing against one another from this vantage point.

“Tristan!” I yelled, but with the crowd noise and music, no one would ever hear me.

“Tristan!” Louder and more panicked this time. Where was he? What was he doing? My mind raced to every awful thing he could be doing right now.

I didn’t know what to do. Should I go looking for him or stay in this spot? If I left this spot, we’d never find each other. There was a fence near the entrance of the ladies room. I perched myself on an empty spot, my eyes frantically scanning the crowd.

Dark fell over the fairgrounds, making picking people out harder and harder. I don’t know how much time had passed. Too much. I wasn’t quite crying, more half hyperventilating, half sobbing.

“There you are!” Tristan finally resurfaced, with the blonde guy from the parking in lot in tow. He smiled at me like he hadn’t scared me half out of my mind by disappearing. His eyes were glassy.

If he wasn’t my only hope for ever getting home, I might have strangled him right in the middle of the fairgrounds.

“Where have you been?” I hissed.

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Tristan, stop it. You scared me half to death.”

“I just saw Adam here. You remember Adam right?” Adam tipped his hat to me while I glared past Tristan at him.

“I want to go home.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“Callie, relax, the show’s not over yet.”

“Don’t tell me to relax! You took off on me.”

“Well, I’m back now, aren’t I?”

So there was no arguing with him. How did Taryn deal with this all the time? It was maddening. He truly had no concept of the consequences of his actions when he was like this. Now we had to start all over again from square one.

Adam took the hint that he should probably leave us alone and disappeared.

Tristan led me back to one of the stages and we watched the rest of the set. He pulled me in close to him. I was too exhausted from lack of sleep and the events of the day to fight with him. I leaned against him, sliding my arms around his waist, hoping if nothing else it would keep him satisfied enough to just stay there with me.

I looked up at him as the band left the stage and the crowd started to disperse. “We should head back soon.”

“Rise Against is next. We can leave after that.”

“I’m kind of worried we’re going to miss the ferry.”

“We’ll be fine.” He pulled me in tighter.

Rise Against played for about a half an hour. Tristan loved it, singing along and pumping his fist along to the beat, but I was too worried now about getting home to enjoy anything. I had no idea what time it was, besides late. And I had no idea how late the ferry ran, but I knew it didn’t go all night.

We had a hard time finding the car, not that it mattered. Cars jammed every driveway, not moving. Tristan immediately headed for the trunk.

“Oh no, not now, Tristan.”

“What? Jesus, Callie, I’m grabbing a soda.”

He handed me one as well. I climbed in the passenger’s seat and hoped that he’d follow my lead to get in the car and stay away from trouble. Thankfully, he did. He reclined his seat and leaned back with his eyes closed. His phone vibrated several times but he didn’t reach for it. If I had any idea where it was, I would have checked the messages. Not that I knew how, since I didn’t have a cell phone.

Traffic finally broke. “Tristan. Tristan! It’s time to go. The cars are moving.” The clock blazed 10:45 like a terrible omen.

Stretching and adjusting, Tristan put the car in drive and pulled out on to the main drive.

“Did you have fun today?”

Was it too dark for him to see the disbelief on my face? I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to see it or not. Had he forgotten the drinking, the girl, the almost fight, stranding me at the bathroom? “It was interesting.”

“So you didn’t have fun.”

“Tristan, I’m just tired. Let’s not argue, all right?”

He sighed heavily but didn’t say any more. He pulled in to the Steamship Authority parking lot. It was dark and lifeless. Closed.

“Oh my God.” I couldn’t hide my panic.

“This isn’t right,” Tristan seemed truly puzzled. “It’s not that late. What the hell kind of operation are they running?”

“One that closes before 11:30. Oh my God, I’m dead.” I thought I was going to puke. There was no air in the car. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much trouble I was in.

“Callie, calm down, we’ll just--”

“I can’t calm down! Don’t you understand? I wasn’t even supposed to go to this with you. And now I can’t get home. My mother is going kill me. And you. We’re both dead, Tristan. Dead! I am not kidding.”

“Let me think,” Tristan still thought there was some sort of resolution to this situation that didn’t end with both of us in pine boxes. “We’ll just call home, as soon as find my cell phone, and explain we missed the ferry.” He felt around the driver’s seat looking for his phone.

“It’s somewhere under your seat,” I said flatly, my hand over my eyes. “It was buzzing the whole time you were sleeping.”

“Probably with people looking for us.” He actually had the nerve to smile at me. I glared at him. He recovered the phone. “Yikes. Thirty new messages.”

My stomach sickened. “Great.”

Chapter Thirteen

The panic in my dad’s voice was clear as he answered the phone. It broke my heart.

“Callie, sweetheart, where are you? We’re worried sick.”

“Woods Hole. We missed the ferry. I’m so sorry, Daddy.” Tears rolled down my face.

There was no covering up the disgust in his sigh. “What were you thinking? You can’t do things like this.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Here’s your mother.”

I braced myself for the inevitable tongue lashing that was about to begin. Although, I wished she had just answered the phone. I knew I had it coming from her. Having to explain myself to my dad was far worse punishment. I was truly sorry I hurt him.

“Well, I guess I can call the police back and say you’re not missing, just stupid, right, Calliope?”

“Sure.” I was at a loss. There was no arguing with her right now. I was too exhausted to do anything but accept my sentence.

“I stopped short of reporting you kidnapped out of respect to Caroline.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“No, you’re not. Just because Tristan is allowed to run around wild and do whatever he wants doesn’t mean you’ll follow suit. You should both be glad there’s a body of water separating us right now, Calliope.”

“I just didn’t think we’d--”

She cut me off. “No, you didn’t think. You’re both expected at work tomorrow. The rest of us shouldn’t have to suffer because of your poor decisions. First ferry back in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“We will discuss this more tomorrow. And Calliope, use your head tonight. I mean it.”

The phone clicked in my ear.

“That went well,” Tristan said as I handed the phone back to him. “Let’s head down to the beach.” I noticed while I was on the phone he’d grabbed blankets and sweatshirts out of the trunk. My heart was already pounding from the phone call. My brain couldn’t process the fact that we were having a sleepover.

I rubbed my forehead then looked up at the sky before falling into step with him. “Nothing ever goes well with my mother. She called the police, you know.”

He laughed. “I’m sure they cared. ‘My daughter didn’t listen to me, and now I’m really mad’.” He mocked her voice.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “She would have told them you kidnapped me, but she said she didn’t out of respect to your aunt.”

That made him laugh even harder. “So Caroline didn’t think she was a complete psycho, you mean?”

“Tristan! Stop it.”

“Okay, that was a little out of line. She’s your mother, but my god Callie, she’s unbearable. She has to understand if she keeps treating you like she does, these are the things that are going to happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“She controls your every move. She doesn’t let you go to a real school, she’s got you working at her restaurant all the time, I’m not even sure you have any friends outside of the restaurant since you never talk about them. It’s like she keeps you in a cage.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, my brain processing what he said. “I never thought of it like that,” I said quietly.

“Of course not, because you never knew it any other way.” Tristan surveyed the spot I’d stopped in. “This looks good.” He spread the blanket out and sat down, patting the spot next to him for me to join.

I sat down, and he handed me one of the sweatshirts. I pulled it over my head, inhaling his scent as it surrounded me. I wrapped my arms around my middle, my eyes not really processing anything, just thinking about what he’d said. Tristan left me alone with my thoughts for a minute, just watching me.

“But she was right, look what happened. You.” I instantly felt bad blaming him for the trouble I was in. Sure, he’d wanted me to come, but the decision to go was all mine. “The day was out of control, and now we missed the ferry.”

He started rubbing my back. “Callie, she would have reacted the same way if we’d gone to a church social. It sucks that we missed the boat, but even if we didn’t, you’d probably be dealing with the same thing. And I’m going to be honest with you, I’m kind of glad we missed it.”

He leaned in closer. My breath caught in my throat.

“Me too,” it was barely more than a whisper.

We sat there just like that, just holding each other, for I’m not sure how long. Taryn’s voice thundered in my head, and I did my best to make it go away.

“Why do you do it?” I craned my neck up to look at him.

“Do what?”

“You know,” I was losing confidence in my question. “The drinking, and the other stuff.” I wasn’t quite sure what the other stuff really was.

He didn’t answer me right away. At first I was afraid I’d upset him, but I could tell by his expression he was thinking about what to say.

“You know how I said I wasn’t sure if you had any friends outside of the restaurant?” He was rubbing my back again, but it was more of a nervous thing this time. I nodded. “I don’t have any real friends, besides Taryn, and only because she’s my sister. There’s plenty of people around, but they only tolerate us, or want something because of our parents. They get what they want, and they move on. They don’t care about what we want.”

That was the saddest thing I’d ever heard. Tristan was so full of life, how could people just dismiss him like that?

“I’m your friend.”

“I know. And it makes the rest of it that much worse, because we have so little time left together.”

“Do you have to leave?”

He nodded. “If I stay here, I’ll get in trouble just like I do everywhere else. Look what happened today. I can’t do that to you.” He cupped my face in his hands.

I wanted to give him a thousand reasons why it would be different. To give him one reason to stay. But could it be enough for him here? Was he right?

“I’ll never forget what you’ve given me this summer, Callie.”

He leaned in to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me up on to his lap. He began working his way down my neck, making me moan as I raked my fingers through his hair and pulled him in closer. Eventually, he fell backwards so I was lying on top of him, his hands holding me tight around my waist under my shirt. I moved my faced down so our lips met again.

I thought we might kiss until dawn. Tristan finally separated from me, looking into my eyes barely inches away. Then he eased me down, so my head rested on his chest.

“Get some sleep, Callie.” He softly wound his fingers through my hair, playing with my curls until I drifted off.